


rosmarinus officinalis

by Blyth3



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Bad Poetry, Character Study, Gen, Grief/Mourning, I picked this one because I know Too Many Things about plants but then none of that even made it in, Pre-Canon, R2SID Exchange, Siblings, it turns out writing bad poetry is incredibly freeing, please read the poetry out loud--it really... uh... shines? when you do that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-18
Updated: 2017-04-18
Packaged: 2018-10-20 16:40:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10666644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blyth3/pseuds/Blyth3
Summary: The worst of it was that in her last transmission, Awn had said she might be coming home to visit.





	rosmarinus officinalis

The worst of it was that in her last transmission, Awn had said she might be coming home to visit. It was more of a wish than anything else, really, but Awn had thought that she might be able to get a week of free time. Basnaaid’s feelings had been mixed—she’d never actually met her much-older sister face-to-face, and the thought of a fourth person in her family’s cozy home was alarming. But she’d been looking forward to it all the same.

 

_The autumn leaves fall_

_Like my heart, like your spirit_

_The watery depths_

 

_Of course that was the one on top_ , Basnaaid thought as she sat back on her heels, chuckling at the quality of her old poetry. She’d been trying to decide whether or not she wanted to bring the box of her poems with her when she moved to Athoek Station. She didn’t need to; all of them were saved on the computer. They’d had to be, so that she could send them to Awn. But her family had been able to afford paper with the money Awn sent home, and it had made Basnaaid feel like a real, grown up poet to write her poems out by hand. This one had been about her Betta fish, Issa, who had died from some kind of problem with her float bladder. Still, it seemed fitting that the first thing Basnaaid saw in the box of poems she’d sent to her dead sister was the one poem she’d written about death. She’d cried, when she found Issa floating lifelessly at the top of her tank, even though everyone had known it was coming. But then Basnaaid had thought, _Awn wouldn’t cry about this, not about a fish_ , so she’d stopped, blotting her tears on her sleeve. Her mothers had been working in the garden when she’d come outside clutching a small box and a trowel. They’d looked at her, but they didn’t say anything when she went to dig a hole under the orange tree. Later, Basnaaid sent the haiku she’d written to Awn, but she hadn’t included an explanation and Awn had never asked.

 

_Flowers_

_Useful, pretty_

_Growing, blossoming, fruiting_

_Growing in springtime, harvested in summer_

_Eating, canning, cooking_

_Yummy, beneficial_

_Fruit_

 

Basnaaid hadn’t cared that much about gardening at first. She wanted to be in the kitchen, learning to use the knives—or at least she wanted to be the sort of person who wanted that. Gardening had seemed exciting, for about five minutes, but once she realized how much work she had to do before she could pick things she lost interest. But her mothers needed someone to trim the herb garden, and when she did well with that, they told her she was now in charge of taking care of the tomato patch too.

Basnaaid hadn’t enjoyed the tomato patch. She forgot to water it sometimes, and then she felt bad for neglecting the plants, and then she felt silly for feeling bad. And no matter how hard she worked, the weeds always came back. It felt like she was in a war and they were winning.

One night, Basnaaid had been dozing at the big kitchen table over a book of poetry her tutor had assigned her. It was dull, and the language was archaic; it took all her effort to untangle the meaning of a single line, and once she’d done that it was hard to find it poetic.

“Psst!” someone said, and Basnaaid sat upright, squinting around the darkened kitchen. Her mama was leaning over her.

“I have a treat for you,” her mama said.

“What?” Basnaaid said, still groggy.

Her mama handed her a plate with a zucchini-and-basil fritter on it—Basnaaid’s favorite—with tomato preserves on top.

“What’s this for?” Basnaaid said.

“Eating, silly!” her mama replied. Basnaaid drew herself up haughtily and put on her best “educated Radchaai” accent.

“What is the occasion?” she said. Her mama sighed, and looked down at the table.

“It’s a celebration,” she said. “I made those tomato preserves from the first crop of tomatoes.”

“From my plot?” Basnaaid said. Her mama nodded. “Huh,” Basnaaid said. She bit into the fritter; the preserves were sweeter than she’d expected.

 

_Chop! Goes Mama with the big cleaver, and_

_Sizzle! Says the big skillet Mom uses._

_The kitchen is loud, clanking pots and pans,_

_And messy with things dripping their juices._

 

_But I have grown up here for ten long years;_

_I grew those tomatoes right over there._

_The onions no longer sting me to tears;_

_I can’t touch the knives yet but I’m not scared._

 

_Like a soldier I advance through the heat,_

_Making my way to get spices for Mom,_

_I know I hate what she’s cooking with beets,_

_But I’ll help her out with grace and aplomb._

 

_Maybe when I’m big I’ll be a cook too,_

_But I can be anything thanks to you!_

 

Basnaaid grimaced at that one, and felt old self-loathing churn in her stomach. The sonnet had been an attempt on her teacher’s part to see if a very formal framework would improve her poetry. It hadn’t. Basnaaid suspected, in hindsight, that Awn had been embarrassed when she’d read the poem, because her message had been even more formal than usual. But she had never smirked or giggled, and she had attempted to analyze the poem, such as it was. Basnaaid remembered Awn praising how she’d set the scene in the beginning, and asking all about the tomatoes. Basnaaid had admitted, when she sent a message back, that she’d taken some poetic license; their mothers had planted the tomatoes, and she had only weeded and watered them.

“That’s still very important,” Awn had said in her reply. “If you didn’t weed the tomato plot, all of those weeds would use up the nutrients that the tomatoes need. They would grow in front of the sun and the tomato plants would get weak. And if you didn’t water them, they would wilt and dry up and die. Our mothers could take care of the tomatoes, yes, but since you’re doing that instead they can work even harder on the other parts of the garden.” Basnaaid had known all that, but it had made her feel more important when Awn said it.

Awn had her own garden on _Justice of Toren_ , if you could call two potted plants a garden. She had brought two of the tiny succulents that grew on the mountains east of their family’s home. Awn had loved to hike there; Basnaaid had gone a few times but there wasn’t much to see, and some parts of the trails went straight up. Their parents had a picture of Awn hanging from one of the vertical parts, and even though she was wearing a harness and a rope, the picture scared Basnaaid every time she looked at it.

A week after she heard about Awn’s death, and the destruction of _Justice of Toren_ , Basnaaid had remembered the little succulents and cried for an hour. It was longer than she’d cried for her sister.

 

_The feel of anger is like pickled pepper_

_It runs through my veins and I feel betrayal_

_I wish you’d never said those lies about her_

_Why do you believe my sister’s portrayal?_

_It’s beneath me to give in to my anger_

_But my heart was so sore and I’d had my fill_

_My fists can speak too if you will let them talk_

_I cannot forgive you so away I walk_

 

Basnaaid walked out into the sunshine, squinting in the sudden light. She’d volunteered to help her tutor put the class’s extra writing supplies away, since she needed to curry some favor with her. Ever since her sister had died, she hadn’t been able to bring herself to write anything. Basnaaid was old enough now that she knew her poetry wasn’t very good, and that it probably never would be, no matter how much her tutor told her mothers that she just needed a few more (expensive) lessons. And now it just seemed so pointless.

“ _I_ heard that it was an assassination attempt,” said Basnaaid’s friend Ariaan, who was sitting at a table with two other students. “The Lieutenant blew up the ship to assassinate the Lord of the Radch.” Ariaan had her back to Basnaaid, and couldn’t see her. But Ceyar, who was sitting across from Ariaan, clearly could and she was making exaggerated faces that Basnaaid could see all too clearly. “Everyone knows that’s silly, of course, but people say she was a bit simple.”

Basnaaid had a bad feeling about this.

“Still,” Ariaan said, “I suppose it’s impressive that she managed to figure out how to make her ship self-destruct. That can’t have been easy. Maybe someone helped her?” Ariaan leaned towards her co-conspirators. “Maybe she was kneeling to someone who showed her how to do it!” Ceyar gave up on making faces and started jerking her head towards Basnaaid.

Ariaan finally got the hint from Ceyar and turned around. The guilty expression on her face told Basnaaid everything she needed to know.

“What are we talking about?” Basnaaid asked. She couldn’t quite make herself sound cheerful, but she managed to come across as mildly interested.

“Nothing!” Ceyar said quickly.

“Really?” Basnaaid said. “It sounded fascinating. An assassination plot against the Lord of the Radch?”

“Oh come off it,” Dyran said, speaking up for the first time. “Stop pretending you don’t know what we’re talking about.”

“Is it true?” Ariaan said. It seemed she’d made a heroic effort to overcome any guilt she felt for gossiping behind Basnaaid’s back. “Did your sister really try to kill the Lord of the Radch?” Ceyar turned and glared at her.

“You can’t just ask her something like that!” she said.

“Why not?” Ariaan said. “Basnaaid doesn’t care about her _that_ much. They’ve never even met!”

“That’s not what I said!” Basnaaid said. Ariaan was referring to a late-night conversation they’d had years ago, but she was twisting it. Ceyar and Dyran looked at her. “That’s not what I said,” Basnaaid told them.

“Did she ever say anything to you about her scheme?” Dyran said. “I mean, even if you weren’t close _personally_ , you’re still family. Maybe she warned you ahead of time!”

“She never said anything because she didn’t _do_ anything,” Basnaaid said. “ _Justice of Toren_ went mad.”

“That only happens in historical dramas,” Ariaan said, examining her nails. “In real life, it’s just people making bad decisions.”

“Real life?” Basnaaid said. “You don’t know anything about real life!” Ariaan went to the same poetry tutor as the rest of them, sure, but that was because she didn’t expect to need much skill at poetry. She came from a rich family; Ariaan used the poetry lessons as a way to observe the lower classes. She’d managed to make it seem sort of endearing at one point.

“I know more about the world than you do,” Ariaan said. Dyran smirked, while Ceyar looked away.

“Stand up,” Basnaaid said.

“Oh?” Ariaan said, raising her eyebrows and standing slowly, making it clear in every line of her body that she was just humoring the silly peasant. “Are we going to have a fight?”

“No,” Basnaaid said, and punched her in the face.

She broke three of the small bones in her hand. She hoped that Awn would have been proud, but suspected she would have been disappointed instead.

 

_There was a poetry student so bad_

_Her writing made even the old poets sad_

_Her lessons were a waste_

_This poem’s just a taste_

_Without this torture she’ll be awfully glad_

 

“ _What_ is the meaning of this?” Basnaaid’s poetry tutor asked.

“The meaning of what?” Basnaaid said.

“This poem that you turned in!”

“Oh,” Basnaaid said. “That. I quit.”

“You quit what?”

“My lessons.” Basnaaid shrugged, trying to keep her face emotionless. “I’m sorry but I’m just not good at poetry. You know it as well as I do. At my skill level, it’ll never get me a career; it’s a waste of time.” _And_ , she thought, t _he lessons are too expensive. Without Awn—well. We don’t need the extra expense._

Basnaaid had hoped that her tutor would protest that she wasn’t hopeless, even if it was just an obvious ploy to get her mothers to keep paying for lessons. But she was to be disappointed.

“Well,” her tutor said, “my classroom won’t be the same without you.” Basnaaid raised her eyebrows. “You may not be the best poet I’ve taught, but you’re not a bad student. What are you going to do with your free time?”

“I think,” Basnaaid said, “that I’ll work in the garden.”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry this is late! I was seriously ill and then I had writer's block. Honestly, I think the writer's block threw me off more than the illness.  
> "Rosmarinus officinalis" is the scientific name for rosemary which is, as Ophelia says, for remembrance.  
> The poem types in order are haiku, diamante, shakespearean sonnet, ottava rima, and limerick but they are hardly good examples of any of those forms.


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